By declining Alex Gonzalez’s option for next season the Red Sox moved Jed Lowrie back atop their shortstop depth chart for now, but Peter Gammons of ESPN.com reports that “it is clear they want Lowrie to play at Pawtucket, make up for what amounts to a lost season, and prove that his wrist will hold up.”
Gammons speculates that the Red Sox could look to re-sign Gonzalez for less than the $6 million option, go after another low-cost, short-term veteran like Omar Vizquel, or perhaps make a serious run at free agent Marco Scutaro, although his Type A status would cost them a first-round draft pick.
Prior to his wrist injury Lowrie had emerged as the Red Sox’s starting shortstop after hitting .258/.339/.400 with good defense as a 24-year-old rookie in 2008, but he appeared in just 32 games this season while batting .147. Counting on him to be the full-time starter again in 2010 is perhaps more of a risk than the Red Sox are willing to take, but clearly if he’s healthy Lowrie won’t be at Triple-A or on the bench for long.
All of which makes me think that they’ll go short term (Gonzalez, Vizquel, etc.) rather than make a multi-year commitment to someone like Scutaro. Of course, if reports about the Red Sox’s interest in J.J. Hardy are accurate they were certainly willing to make a multi-year commitment to him at shortstop. Boston reportedly offered Michael Bowden to Milwaukee in exchange for Hardy, but balked when the counteroffer was Clay Buchholz or Daniel Bard. Hardy ended up being dealt to Minnesota for Carlos Gomez.

Tempers flared between the Astros and Rangers on Monday in Arlington. In the bottom of the second inning, Astros starter Collin McHugh threw a first-pitch fastball inside to Rangers outfielder Carlos Gomez. Gomez didn’t like it, so he stared at McHugh for a few seconds. Gomez fouled off the next pitch and jawed at McHugh before taking a few steps towards the mound. McHugh came in and the benches emptied. Fortunately, order was quickly restored and both teams were issued warnings.

The Astros and Rangers had a benches-clearing incident earlier this season as well. In a game in Houston on May 1, Astros starter Lance McCullers threw inside to Mike Napoli, which caused the benches to spill out onto the field. McHugh also hit Gomez with a first pitch fastball in the second inning on August 31 and Mike Fiers did the same in the second inning on August 12. As a result, Gomez thinks the Astros have it out for him. Via Levi Weaver of WFAA Sports:

The second pitch, he took a big swing and fouled it off and took about five steps out toward the mound, looking me straight in the eye. I just asked him if we had a problem. It was a rhetorical question because, clearly, he’s got a problem with me. I don’t exactly know what it is, but whatever the case, he came out and I asked him what the issue was and he said, ‘Yeah, I got a problem with you.’ That was it. Everybody else was out there by that point in time. The game goes on. I don’t want to spend any more mental effort thinking about Carlos Gomez.

The series resumes on Tuesday night as Dallas Keuchel will oppose Cole Hamels. It will be interesting to see if the drama bleeds over into this one.

In the bottom of the second inning of Monday night’s game at Busch Stadium, Cubs shortstop Addison Russell dove into the stands down the left field line in an attempt to catch a foul ball. A Cardinals fan holding a tray of nachos was in Russell’s path and had his tasty treat knocked onto the dirt in front of the stands. Russell did the fan a solid, though, bringing him a new tray of nachos and posed for a selfie. The fan was also later seen taking selfies with other fans.

“A guy fell into him and got nacho cheese on his arm and now he’s taking pictures and signing autographs. It shows you where our society’s at right now with all that stuff.”

It wasn’t like Lester had a poor outing and that’s why he was salty. The lefty yielded just one run on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts over six innings. Lester just, uh, hates selfies, I guess? I’m also not sure how the whole scenario is a reflection of American society, unless he means that people can turn a disappointing situation into a fun and heartwarming situation.

At least Russell and Cubs manager Joe Maddon had a good sense of humor about it. Maddon said the whole thing was “pretty entertaining.” Russell said, “You don’t get between a man and his nachos.”